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Security Update

Whilst we continue to believe that Sri Lanka remains a wonderful and safe destination for travel, we would like to ensure that our clients are aware of the political situation in Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lankan Government has announced the defeat of the the LTTE (or Tamil Tigers) and are now in control of the entire country, for the first time in 25 years. It seems clear that the LTTE have been comprehensively and decisively incapacitated as a military force. It remains to be seen whether they will retain any capacity to mount terrorist attacks following this comprehensive defeat. The LTTE has also released public statements to say that it is giving up the armed struggle and moving towards political channels.

For the time being our advice remains the same:

The conflict has always been largely contained to the north and east of the island, well away from the tourist areas. However, there have been occasional terrorist attacks in the country as a whole. While the majority were aimed at military or political targets, several have been more indiscriminate. The fact remains that in the last two decades of civil unrest, no tourist has ever been targeted.

We would advise all of clients to read the Foreign Office Advice. This is regularly updated and provides a fair and accurate assessment of the situation. The advice essentially remains unchanged. Please read this before deciding to holiday in Sri Lanka.

We believe that Sri Lanka is a safe place for tourists to travel. Statistically it remains one of the world’s safer destinations. Are we biased? Yes of course! However, we visit regularly with our friends and families and will continue to do so. Feedback from customers is consistently that they are very glad they went, even if they had initial misgivings.

We will not sell holidays against the advice of the UK Foreign Office. In the highly unlikely event of the advice changing to ‘against all travel’ to Sri Lanka, we would endeavour to refund customers in full as quickly as possible.

In July 2009 the Foreign Office revised its travel advice to relax certain restrictions. Yala National Park, Trincomalee and Arugan Bay are now considered safe by the FCO - a major move which we expect to be the first of a series of revisions. Wilpattu National Park is also expected to open shortly as are other areas which have been considered 'off limits' for tourists.

Please contact us by telephone if you would like to discuss the current situation in further detail.

This is a very exciting time for Sri Lanka with peace and reconciliation very much the subject of the day. Whilst it is still only months since the LTTE were defeated, all the signs suggest that this really is the end of the conflict and that a new era has finally dawned for the people (and visitors) of Sri Lanka.

10 July 2009